


i know i stand in line (until you think you have the time)

by TheJGatsby



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 01:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4769228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJGatsby/pseuds/TheJGatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there’s one thing Bellamy wants history to know, it’s that he showed incredible restraint holding out as long as he did. He’s known Clarke for years, and he’s loved her basically as long, so the fact that he managed to make it all that time without saying anything is a feat worthy of many, many medals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know i stand in line (until you think you have the time)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Something Stupid" by the Secret Sisters.

They met in college, when they had the same _awful_ class on Greek and Roman art (he was a history major, she was pre-med dabbling in art history nominally to infuriate her mother but truthfully because she loved art even more than medicine, which was saying something, but she wasn’t about to do it as a career) and they figured out pretty quickly that since she was good at the “art” side and he was good at the “history” side, together they stood a chance of actually passing the fucking nightmare course. Then his mom died, and he took a semester off, and when he got back Clarke was there with the sort of silent, comforting companionship he needed. Her dad had died when she was sixteen, and she remembered how much it sucked, and she was to him all the things she’d wanted and needed when she was grieving. Clarke was a caregiver, in that way- she always figured out how to be exactly the kind of person someone needed, and she was always looking after people. Bellamy tried to be like that, too, but he didn’t have the same instinct for people’s needs as Clarke did, so he just ended up being protective and a little overbearing sometimes. Their friends always said that Clarke was the cool mom to Bellamy’s overprotective dad, and they both always grimaced at the sentiment, but they were the ones bringing water bottles to parties to look after drunk friends, so they couldn’t exactly deny it.

It was a very sneaky bonding process, if Bellamy was honest. They became best friends when he wasn’t looking, and before he could stop it Clarke was an inextricable part of his life, her bobby pins in his couch cushions and his old t-shirts in her pajama drawer. They were the sort of friends who knew each other inside and out, who didn’t really need to talk anymore. When Clarke showed up at his apartment with tears on her face and the news that her boyfriend had another girlfriend, Bellamy knew what flavor of ice cream she wanted to cry into and what hypermasculine action movies made her forget her broken heart in a haze of fiery explosions, and he was the one who went to her ex’s apartment and got her things and shouted at him, and every time Finn called wanting to beg her back, Bellamy was the one who picked up the phone and told him exactly where he could stick his apologies.

By then he knew that he was pretty far gone for Clarke, but by the time he’d realized his feelings for her, she was dating Finn, so he didn’t say anything. He never liked Finn, honestly. Even barring his obvious jealousy, he thought Finn was boring, felt like he took Clarke for granted. He used to cancel on plans, last-minute, break promises. He was unreliable, and he disappointed Clarke, and that just rubbed Bellamy the wrong way all the time. But after Ravengate, Clarke was so broken up over having been used like that, Bellamy couldn’t even think of saying anything or making a move. Then she moved on to Lexa, and Bellamy stayed quiet, and by the time she and Lexa decided they were better off friends, Bellamy didn’t really know how to tell her, so he didn’t. Then came graduation, and med school, and she was so busy all the time, and Bellamy hardly ever saw her, so he figured maybe the feelings would go away, but whenever they found time to hang out, she’d smile at him and he’d feel like the sun had taken up residence in his chest and he knew that he was still hopeless.

He’d tried to date, thinking it would rid him of his feelings, but somehow girls would always suss him out, and although they were sweet and understanding about it, they all knew better than to let themselves play second fiddle to his best friend. So he stuck to one night stands, and if he sometimes accidentally moaned the wrong name, that stayed between them.

But that’s basically how he got here- twenty-five and desperately in love with his best friend who is approaching the end of medical school and is considering moving across the country for her residency, which he is fine with. Absolutely. One-hundred percent. So fine.

Because she’s a med student and a general overachiever, it’s rare that they get to spend time together that isn’t just him drilling her on flashcards she probably has photographically memorized, and when she does get free time, she tends to prioritize her other friends, which he understands. They live in each other’s pockets, and he’s the one she goes to for meals and stressing out and studying, so her other friends are first priority when she has free time, and he doesn’t mind being lower on the list of people she spends her free time with. But graduation is coming up, and she has to pick a residency, and she’s anxious and wound up, so she calls him one Friday and says “Meet me at Grounder’s, we’re getting shitfaced.”

So there he is, half an hour later, watching in amusement as Clarke fiddles with her beer, glaring at it like it’s got the answers to all her problems.

“What do you think?” she says suddenly.

“I think it’s weird that the girl who wanted to get trashed hasn’t touched her drink,” he replies with a grin.

She scowls good-naturedly and kicks him under the table. “No, I mean about my residency.”

He shrugs. “I think you should do what would make you happier.”

“That’s what you say every time I ask you,” she grumbles. “Just tell me where I should go so if it ends up being the wrong decision I can blame you.”

He cracks a grin, staring down at the table. “Really, though. I think you should weigh everything objectively and decide where you’d be happier, and go there.”

She bites her lip, considering. “If it were you, what would you choose?”

“Simple,” he replies, sitting back. “I’d stay. O is here, California is dumb anyway. Everyone there is hot. It’s too good to be true, they’ve got to all be government shills of some kind.”

That gets him a grin. “Okay, so you think I should stay.”

“No, that’s not what I said. I said I’d stay, because I have ties here. You don’t.”

A strange look crosses her face, and she says, “I mean, just because I don’t have a sister here doesn’t mean I don’t have people… things I’d want to stay for.”

“Like what?” he asks, leaning forward a little.

“My friends? I don’t know.” She groans and falls forward, her forehead thunking down onto the table. “I don’t want to make this decision, it’s too hard, someone else should make it for me.” He reaches out and pats her head, and she sighs, propping her chin on her hands. “I just… I don’t want to end up making the wrong choice, you know? Because this is, like, _years_ of my life, it’s not just a vacation I can bail on whenever.”

“So why are you feeling conflicted about it? What’s here that isn’t there?”

She pauses, staring at the table, then finally, quietly says, “You are.”

His breath catches and his heart leaps into his throat. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Bellamy. No one’s there for me the way you are, no one knows me better, there’s no one I trust and depend on more. I don’t know what I’d do without you, I genuinely don’t, but I mean, I have to learn to be a person separate from you eventually, right? Cause it’s not gonna be you and me forever. Eventually you’re going to be a professional history nerd and you're going to find a girl who can stand you and I’m going to be a rich, successful, busy doctor, and it’s just not going to be possible for the way we are now to last forever.”

It feels like everything inside him collapsed a little bit. The best friend she’s ever had… of course. That’s what he is. That’s all he’s ever been, and all he’ll ever be, because he missed his chances, every last one of them, and he can’t fault her because it’s not as if she knew, but it still twists his heart to know that he’s only her friend. It’s that, he thinks, that gives him the courage to finally, _finally_ say something.

“I think you should stay,” he begins quietly. “For a lot of reasons- I mean, you’re kind of a disaster, you forget to eat, you’d have bitten your damn fingers off during every exam since I’ve known you, if I wasn’t helping you study you’d get no human interaction, like, ever. Face it, Griffin, you need me.” He takes a deep breath, looking away from her so he doesn’t have to see her reaction as he continues. “But that’s… it’s not just that you’d be all by yourself out there and you really are not good at being alone. I want you to stay, for me. I want… you need someone to look after you, okay? Make sure you’re not getting so caught up in taking care of everyone else you forget about taking care of yourself, and I- I want to be that person. It’s….” He sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I want you to stay because I love you, okay? I’m in love with you, I have been for years, I don’t… I don’t want to think about you being so far away because it makes me sick to my goddamn stomach and I’d miss you to death and if this makes you want to leave, then fine, okay, I get it, and you should follow your heart and all that shit but I just… I couldn’t go any longer not saying anything.” He doesn’t look at her as he stands, digging in his pocket for a five-dollar bill, then leaves the bar, shoulders slumped.

Of course he had to just go and spoil it all, just ruin their entire friendship by saying something so, so _stupid_.

When he gets back to his apartment, he falls face-first onto his bed and curses, loudly, into his pillow. Then he just lays there, hoping that maybe not lifting his head means he’ll smother himself to death, but he can still breathe, so it’s a no-go. Alcohol, it seems, is the only viable solution, so he rolls out of bed and trudges to the kitchen and gets out a bottle of shitty vodka and a shotglass. After a moment he reconsiders on the shotglass, because he’s a pathetic fucking mess anyway so why not drink straight from the bottle? But just lying around drinking alone is kind of pathetic, so he pulls out his phone. His first choice is, of course, Clarke, but for obvious reasons he can’t call her, now or ever again for the rest of his life, so instead he calls Miller and talks him into coming over and making up drinking games to bad eighties movies.

About an hour and a few drinks in Bellamy says, “So I told Clarke I love her.”

“Took you long enough,” Miller replies casually, unruffled. “Why isn’t she here then?”

“Because the lead up was her calling me the best friend she ever had and telling me how sad she was that I was going to find a girl who could stand me one day and we wouldn’t be the two musketeers or whatever anymore. It just sort of came out.”

“Okay, so why isn’t she here?”

Bellamy side-eyes him. “Did you not hear me? I’m her best friend, she’s not going to just-”

There’s a knock on the door and Miller gets up to open it, giving Bellamy a look. It’s Clarke, and Bellamy feels his heart twist and jump and drop like awful emotional gymnastics, so he looks away from her and goes back to staring at the coffee table.

“Hi Miller,” she says. “Can I-”

“I’m already gone,” Miller replies, sidling past her out the door and throwing a wave over his shoulder to Bellamy. She stands on the threshold for a minute, hesitant, before stepping in and closing the door softly behind her. Bellamy still doesn’t look up, his mind going a million places with this conversation (mostly to the ‘I love you like a friend, but’ direction but there’s variety, some anger and indignance and disgust, but those are less prevalent). Finally she seems to make up her mind and crosses the room to the couch, sitting down beside him and slotting up against his side like she always has, like nothing’s changed. Half of him is relieved that she seems willing to still be his friend, the other half is agonized because goddammit he told her he was in love with her, something should have changed, but he just wraps his arm around her shoulders and squeezes like they’re still the same, even though it makes his heart twist painfully.

She lets out a relieved sigh and presses her face into his chest so he almost doesn’t hear her say, “I love you too, obviously.”

His heart does the same stupid flip-turn-drop thing it’s been doing all night and despite himself he says bitterly, “As a _friend_ though, right?”

Clarke pulls back immediately, looking angry, then it shifts to amused fondness and she chuckles softly, then moves up and presses her lips to the corner of his jaw. He turns his head to look at her, but before he can say anything she’s caught his mouth in a kiss, intense and wanting, trying to communicate years of unspoken feelings. After a frozen moment, he reciprocates, weaving his hand into her hair, the other brushing down her back to pull her closer, and kissing back earnestly, urgently. His mind gets lost in the feeling and he doesn’t come back down from the clouds until she’s sitting in his lap and she pulls back, grinning at him. “Was that friendly?”

He smiles back at her, ridiculous and bright, pressing his forehead to hers. “Well, we’ve always been more tactile than most friends, so-” She scoffs indignantly and swats his shoulder, making him laugh quietly and kiss her again, slowly this time, less desperate. Everything seems less desperate now, more languid and relaxed and possible. It feels suddenly as if the entire world is laid out at his feet in a way it wasn’t before, because as amazing as his dreams and hopes and goals have always been, they’re even better now that he knows he can have all that, but with Clarke by his side.

She pulls back again and he rests his head on her shoulder, thumb stroking her side as he presses lazy kisses into the crook of her neck just like he’s wanted to for _years._ She sighs happily and cards her fingers through his hair, scraping her nails against his scalp in a way that makes him go boneless like a cat in the sun. “I’m staying, you know,” she says softly, and he stiffens, pulling back. “What?”

“Don’t stay just… don’t stay for me, Clarke. Not just because I want you here. If you want to go to California, do it, I’ll be here when you get back. But don’t stay just because I want you to.”

“No, I’m… I kind of only wanted to go to California because of you, honestly.” She’s a little pink, and she won’t meet his eyes. “I mean, I don’t really want to go do my residency at the hospital my mom is in charge of, you know? But the offer was good, and I knew it’d be good for networking, but mostly I just… it was getting really overwhelming being so stupidly into you because you were just the same as you’d been since, I don’t know, always, so I figured it was pathetic and unrequited and if I went to California I’d be over it by the time I came back.”

Bellamy has to laugh, and she looks quizzically at him. “I’ve been in love with you for an _embarrassingly_ long time, princess, you have _no_ idea. Right now is, like, my ultimate fantasy for years-”

“Alarmingly chaste,” she quips. “Should I be worried that your ultimate fantasy isn’t sexual _at all_? I mean, what healthy allosexual twenty-five-year-old fantasizes about _cuddling_?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, tugging at a lock of her hair, but he’s pretty sure it’s just a testament to how far gone he is for her that he’s thrilled out of his mind just to have her like this, sitting in his lap with one hand at the nape of his neck and the other brushing up and down his bicep. “Please, the fantasy doesn’t _end_ here.”

“Really?” she says, smirking. “Then show me where it ends.”

And he does.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://www.thejgatsbykid.tumblr.com)!


End file.
